pleted. The power, however, of giving it will be transmitted to you in the accustomed manner, and the time of exercising that power will be left entirely to your own discretion, with a confident hope and belief, however, that there will be no occasion for its being brought into use at an earlier period than that which has been suggested by your Excellency.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

PORTLAND.

Mr. Cooke to Lord Castlereagh.

London, June 14, 1800.

My dear Lord-I did not arrive here till this morning. I have seen the Duke of Portland, Mr. Pitt, and King. With the latter I had a full talk upon the necessity of putting an end to every scruple as to Lord Cornwallis's arrangements, I find, as the Duke of Portland told me, that there were some difficulties, but, I think, if the Lord-Lieutenant perseveres, they will be got over. I have enforced to King every argument I could for their complying completely with every suggestion; and he promises me to state them fairly and fully. The Duke told me that he had written to his Excellency on the arrangements, and that he wished no Peers to be made till the Union was passed. I said I conceived his Excellency thought that measure indispensable to the security of his list, and to the fulfilment of his engagements. The Duke said he had pressed his objection strongly.

Mr. Pitt was just going out-he looks well—and I merely talked to him of the misconception he had got into respecting the Countervailing Duties, and satisfied him of his misconception. In my journey, I had seen a newspaper stating that Mr. Pitt waited for the concurrence of the Irish Parliament to the alteration made by the British Parliament in the Irish Countervailing Duties. I was struck on a heap. I was afraid I had been inattentive; yet I knew I had made the comparison of them myself, and found that they corresponded. As

soon as I arrived in town, I made King compare them again with me, and I found all was right: I then requested Mr. Pitt to send for the English and Irish votes, which he did in my presence, and was satisfied. It will not, therefore, be necessary for your Lordship to take any measure in Parliament on the subject. I fear you have been puzzled and alarmed. I rejoice Compensation went so smoothly. The Duke of Portland approves what you do for the Speaker.

No foreign news.

Ever

your Lordship's, &c.,

E. COOKE.

Mr. Charles Tottenham to Lord Castlereagh.

Merrion Street, June 16, 1800. My Lord-As I find it is the intention of Government that the Compensation for the Ecclesiastical Boroughs shall be given to the Board of First Fruits, I beg leave to suggest to your Lordship that, as some churches, particularly the church of Old Ross, in the Diocese of Leighlin and Ferns, were burnt and destroyed by the Rebels; and, as I know that the parishioners are unable, from the variety of losses that they have sustained by the Rebellion, to raise any money towards the rebuilding of their churches, it would be well to enable the Board of First Fruits to rebuild churches in the Diocese of Ferns with part of the Compensation money.

I also beg leave to mention that the Bishop of Ferns appointed Commissioners the beginning of the last winter to examine the state of the church of New Ross, and that they, assisted by an able architect, reported to the Bishop that the church is in a ruinous state, and that the walls of it will not bear a new roof, and that the whole must be rebuilt. As the parishioners are unable to raise a sum sufficient to rebuild, I should hope that a part of the Compensation money for the Borough of Old Leighlin might be appropriated to the rebuilding of this church, as well as that of Old Ross. The Board of First Fruits cannot, by the powers now vested in them, give

any money to rebuild a church where divine service has been performed within the last twenty years, so that it will not be in their power to give money for the above purposes, except a clause shall be introduced into an Act of Parliament to give them that power. I have no doubt but the Bishop of Ferns will approve highly of the appropriation of part of the money for the above purposes, and I have wrote to him to Wales

about it.

I beg pardon for troubling you on this subject, but, as I am much interested in the welfare of these towns, I feel it to be my duty to mention this business to you.

I have the honour to be, with great respect,

CHARLES TOTTENHAM.

Extract of a Letter from Lord Cornwallis to the Duke of Portland.

Secret and Confidential.

Dublin Castle, June 17, 1800. My Lord-After having passed two painful years of difficulty and anxiety, my prospect had begun to brighten; the spirit of rebellion was almost universally subsiding, and the great and important measure of Union was not only carried by a majority in Parliament, but received throughout the nation and even in the metropolis with less ill-humour than could have been expected; and many of the most respectable, although not, during the contest, the least violent of the Anti-Unionists had declared that they wished no longer to be ranked among the Opposers of the Government. But your Grace's despatches of the 12th and 13th, as far as my personal feelings are concerned, have placed me in a more distressing situation than I have yet experienced.

In the most severe trials, I have hitherto been able to conduct myself with a firmness becoming a man of honour and integrity, but now my condition is so much altered that I must either say to those whom I am about to disappoint, that I will not keep my word with them, or acknowledge that I have

pretended to have power which I did not possess, and that I must declare my engagements to be void, because his Majesty's Ministers have refused to fulfil them.

Your Grace and his Majesty's confidential servants do not appear to be aware of the difficulties in which we should be involved by deferring the creation of the Peers until the Union Act has received the royal assent. For, although I admit that it would be a matter of very little importance to the welfare of the Empire whether five or six Unionist or Anti-Unionist Peers should sit in the Imperial Parliament, yet I must contend that it would be of great consequence to the person on whom the administration of the affairs of this kingdom was imposed, if the former should, after the assurances they had received, have any colour for imputing their disappointment to what they might deem his treacherous delay; and it seems a degradation not altogether consistent with the nature of the distinction intended for the individuals in question, so to manage their creation as studiously to deprive them of all interference in the delegation from the body to which they are hereafter to belong, and to the interests of which they are to be associated.

I am so overcome by your Grace's letter, that I know not how to proceed. There was no sacrifice that I should not have been happy to make for the service of my King and country, except that of my honour; the mischief, however, will not end with my disgrace, but the confidence in the English Government will be shaken, and the ill humour of our disappointed supporters will greatly retard the benefits which might have been expected from the measure, and will not tend to strengthen the hands of my successor.

I stated to your Grace in my former letter what I had said to Lord Ormonde: if I should now tell him that his Majesty had refused the boon which I had asked as a personal favour to myself, he will not believe that I had pressed it in a manner that he had a right to expect; and it is likely that there

will then be an end of all intercourse between us. I have had no communication with Lord Londonderry on the subject of a British Peerage, but I felt that it ought to be offered to him on account of the eminent services of his son.

I have now only to request that your Grace will assure his Majesty that I have on this occasion served him honestly and faithfully to the best of my abilities: that I have been biassed by no private motives or partialities, and that all my measures have been solely and uniformly directed to the attainment of that great object, in which the honour of his crown and the security of his dominions were so deeply involved. He will, I am persuaded, see the necessity of my having entered into embarrassing engagements, according to the various circumstances which occurred during the long and arduous contest; and if any of them should appear so strongly to merit his disapprobation as to induce him to withhold his consent to their being carried into effect, he will be pleased to allow me to retire from a station which I could no longer hold with honour to myself, or with any prospect of advantage to his service. I have the honour, &c.,

CORNWALLIS.

Extract of a Letter from Lord Castlereagh to Lord Camden. Secret. Dublin Castle, June 18, 1800. My dear Lord-Although your letter from Wildernesse is silent on the subject of the Irish arrangements in general, which have been recommended from hence, yet I must suppose that you are fully apprized of the communication made by Lord Cornwallis on this subject, and of the answer which has been returned to his despatch.

The tone in which the Duke's despatch is written appears to the Lord-Lieutenant peculiarly ungracious, and it conveys a disapprobation of almost the whole of his arrangements, in terms which make him feel the extent of his embarrassments on both sides of the water. I trust, however, the Duke's next